


Grown To Understand

by monkiainen



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan)
Genre: M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-24
Updated: 2011-10-24
Packaged: 2017-10-24 22:22:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/268522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monkiainen/pseuds/monkiainen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim doesn't like to talk about his childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grown To Understand

**Author's Note:**

> Written for gaudy_night, because I promised I would. I was inspired by the song "Caleb" by Sonata Arctica, feel free to check the song out. Also, English is not my native language, although gaudy keeps telling me there's no need for me to warn people about it. But I still am.

_"I hate it and fear can't face it / the child is not right, he's my greatest shame..”_  
~ Caleb by Sonata Arctica

* * *

Jim Gordon didn’t like to talk about his childhood. There were various reasons to it, most of them caused by his father. Or like Jim liked to think it, the man who had fathered him, but hadn’t really be there for him.

It didn’t matter what Jim did, it would never be right. Sometimes, when growing up, Jim wondered if it would have been better for him not to born at all.

He wasn’t smart enough, tall enough, athletic enough, good-looking enough, whatever enough. He was just… James. The stupid son. Awkward kid with too many stupid questions and naive ideas.

Once upon a time there was a time Jim thought everything would change when he would left home for college. But he wasn’t still smart enough, tall enough, athletic enough, good-looking enough – he was Just James. Or Jim, like he wanted others to call him. His father never believed in nicknames, and refused to call him Jim, even though he repeatedly told him he didn’t like to be called James.

For a while he was good-looking enough, and maybe something more, to Barbara. The one girl who actually seemed to notice him. His father thought she wasn’t good enough to became a Gordon, she wasn’t pretty enough or modest enough or whatever enough.

When Babs and Jimmy were born, they weren’t important enough to their grandfather to acknowledge them. They were just offspring of his not-enough stupid son and his not-good-enough-to-became-a-Gordon wife. In other words, they were nothing.

Years went by, children grew, and the gap between Jim and Barbara grew wider each passing day. One morning Jim woke up and realised he wasn’t enough for Barbara, not anymore.

Scarecrow, The Joker, Two-Face. All those villains later and Gotham City thought Jim was enough for them, enough to make it all stop and to make it all right again.

And he was, but not by himself. Because when all the hope was gone, a ray of light had miraculously shone in Jim’s life, making it all better.

There was someone who thought he was never good enough or smart enough or interesting enough for Jim. Someone who had fought endless battles against crime with Jim, someone who had thought Jim was the one. The one worth pursuing for.

Walking away from the little cemetery just outside of Chicago, Bruce put his arm on Jim’s shoulder, pulling him even closer to him.

“I’m happy he’s dead.”


End file.
